Today something happened that made me wonder if I am too caught up with tending to the baby and letting my boys grow up too quickly?

Already, I have been advised to not be too trusting of strangers or my environment, that I shouldn't let the boys wait at the void deck alone (like wait for the car) or walk to the bus stop and back from school bus stop alone etc. I also let them go down to the playground to play by themselves for short stretches of 15-20min.

Initially it was because I was breastfeeding so frequently (dd needed it every 30min or so in her 1st month) and changing diapers at a high rate, so if the boys wanted to run around, throw ball, cycle etc, they'd to go downstairs alone. There was no choice.

Now, it is not that bad, but I've gotten busy with other stuff like preparing dd's food, cleaning up her mess, so I still let them do those by themselves. But I wonder if I should slowly start getting into the groove of being with them more often. (btw dd is clapping her hands, waving bye bye now and she drinks from a straw and has stood without any support for just a couple of seconds, very exciting time for her)

Safety is one reason, but another could just be that they are still young and need guidance.

So the thing that happened today was that his piano teacher had to trim his fingernails for ds1. My mom brought ds1 to his lesson today and said it is so embarrassing that his nails were so long that his teacher had to cut it for him. She also commented that his school shoes were very dirty.

Oops. That was my fault. Cos since the beginning of his P1 yr, I told him to be responsible for washing his own school shoes. I also let him cut his own nails ever since I was quite heavily pregnant.

Being a 7yr old, I think he would try to get away with doing these tasks as infrequently as possible.

My fault is that I did not "follow up" or supervise. Even if I were training him to be more independent, I should still check and guide. But I failed to do so. I have not really noticed his teeth, nails or cleanliness of his shoes for such a long time.

Then, one of his shirt buttons came off maybe a month ago. It popped out in school and he kept it for me. He came home and passed it to me. I praised him and told him I'd mend it for him. But I kept putting it off cos he was perfectly fine wearing his shirt missing one button. It's still not mended yet.

(yup i should not even be blogging now and should just look for that shirt and sew that button on) (oops, but then i think that shirt is in the wash and then i can't remember where I put that button!)

The last time ds1 got his nails trimmed was also not by himself! We were visiting my in laws, and having the weekly dinner together, when mil noticed his nails were too long and dirty and she trimmed them for him!

Yup, very embarrassing.

But ds1 is always very sweet. He always defends his mom in public, no matter how much he argues with me at home. He patiently explained that it's his own job to trim his nails and that he enjoyed doing it by himself. He also often tells others that his mom is very busy. :)

ds2... He, at 5 yrs old, has to shower himself everyday after he gets home from school. He can fold and put laundry away, and is good at sorting my groceries for me after every trip to NTUC. He knows which drawer for the canned food, what goes into the fridge and freezer and that the bread goes on the table.

When both of them spill anything, they wipe it up themselves.They know when to use Kleenex tissues, toilet paper or kitchen paper towels already because different situations call for different cloth/ tissue and I've screamed at them so much they learnt how I like it to be very quickly.

Finally, ds1's schoolwork.At the start of the year, when P1 was new to me and him, and dd was not born yet, I would check his homework, made sure his bag was packed properly and remind him to learn his spelling/ tingxie.

After getting full marks several times, I let him handle those himself. Since then, his tingxie marks have fluctuated greatly. For English spelling, he is lucky that he reads a lot so he can still get away without much revision. Today he just informed me that for his final Chinese revision of the yr, he obtained 38 marks out of 50. *faint*

I didn't check the paper but he did tell me some mistakes he made. And 38 is a low low mark for P1 when most can achieve 90+% easily.

Hopefully this hols I can get him to read more Chinese books so he can fare better next yr. I believe reading is most impt in improving any language skill.

This hols, I won't be signing him up for any camps (besides the vacation bible school) cos I hope to read more with them, do some baking and bring them out more myself.

It's time - I should spend more time with them!

rainbows every day, do not worry for the morrow ____________________________________________________________